One of Cleopatra's Nights (25 page)

Opening a little coffer which stood on a table supported by one leg
terminating in carven lion's paws, the queen freed her beautiful arms
from the weight of the bracelets and jewelry wherewith they had been
overburdened during the day—arms whose form and whiteness might well
have enabled them to compare with those of Hera, sister and wife of
Zeus, the lord of Olympus. Precious as were her jewels, they were
assuredly not worth the spots which they concealed, and had Nyssia been
a coquette, one might have well supposed that she only donned them in
order that she should be entreated to take them off. The rings and
chased work had left upon her skin, fine and tender as the interior pulp
of a lily, light rosy imprints, which she soon dissipated by rubbing
them with her little taper-fingered hand, all rounded and slender at its
extremities.

Then with the movement of a dove trembling in the snow of its feathers,
she shook her hair, which being no longer held by the golden pins,
rolled down in languid spirals like hyacinth flowers over her back and
bosom. Thus she remained for a few moments ere reassembling the
scattered curls and finally reuniting them into one mass. It was
marvellous to watch the blond ringlets streaming like jets of liquid
gold between the silver of her fingers; and her arms undulating like
swans' necks as they were arched above her head in the act of twisting
and confining the natural bullion. If you have ever by chance examined
one of those beautiful Etruscan vases with red figures on a black
ground, and decorated with one of those subjects which are designated
under the title of "Greek Toilette," then you will have some idea of the
grace of Nyssia in that attitude which, from the age of antiquity to our
own era, has furnished such a multitude of happy designs for painters
and statuaries.

Having thus arranged her coiffure, she seated herself upon the edge of
the ivory footstool and commenced to untie the little bands which
fastened her buskins. We moderns, owing to our horrible system of
footgear, which is hardly less absurd than the Chinese shoe, no longer
know what a foot is. That of Nyssia was of a perfection rare even in
Greece and antique Asia. The great toe, a little apart like the thumb of
a bird, the other toes, slightly long, and all ranged in charming
symmetry, the nails well shaped and brilliant as agates, the ankles well
rounded and supple, the heel slightly tinted with a rosy hue—nothing
was wanting to the perfection of the little member. The leg attached to
this foot, and which gleamed like polished marble under the lamp-light,
was irreproachable in the purity of its outlines and the grace of its
curves.

Gyges, lost in contemplation, though all the while fully comprehending
the madness of Candaules, said to himself that had the gods bestowed
such a treasure upon him he would have known how to keep it to himself.

"Well, Nyssia, are you not coming to sleep with me?" exclaimed
Candaules, seeing that the queen was not hurrying herself in the least,
and feeling desirous to abridge the watch of Gyges.

"Yes, my dear lord, I will soon be ready," answered Nyssia.

And she detached the cameo which fastened the peplum upon her shoulder.
There remained only the tunic to let fall. Gyges, behind the door, felt
his veins hiss through his temples; his heart beat so violently that he
feared it must make itself heard in the chamber, and to repress its
fierce pulsations he pressed his hand upon his bosom; and when Nyssia,
with a movement of careless grace, unfastened the girdle of her tunic,
he thought his knees would give way beneath him.

Nyssia—was it an instinctive presentiment, or was her skin, virginally
pure from profane looks, so delicately magnetic in its susceptibility
that it could feel the rays of a passionate eye though that eye was
invisible—Nyssia hesitated to strip herself of that tunic, the last
rampart of her modesty. Twice or thrice her shoulders, her bosom, and
bare arms shuddered with a nervous chill, as though they had been
suddenly grazed by the wings of a nocturnal butterfly, or as though an
insolent lip had dared to touch them in the darkness.

At last, seeming to nerve herself for a sudden resolve, she doffed the
tunic in its turn; and the white poem of her divine body suddenly
appeared in all its splendor, like the statue of a goddess unveiled on
the day of a temple's inauguration. Shuddering with pleasure the light
glided and gloated over those exquisite forms, and covered them with
timid kisses, profiting by an occasion, alas, rare indeed! The rays
scattered through the chamber, disdaining to illuminate golden arms,
jewelled clasps, or brazen tripods, all concentrated themselves upon
Nyssia, and left all other objects in obscurity. Were we Greeks of the
age of Pericles we might at our ease eulogize those beautiful serpentine
lines, those polished flanks, those elegant curves, those breasts which
might have served as moukis for the cup of Hebe; but modern prudery
forbids such descriptions, for the pen cannot find pardon for what is
permitted to the chisel; and besides, there are some things which can be
written of only in marble.

Candaules smiled in proud satisfaction. With a rapid step, as though
ashamed of being so beautiful, for she was only the daughter of a man
and a woman, Nyssia approached the bed, her arms folded upon her bosom;
but with a sudden movement she turned round ere taking her place upon
the couch beside her royal spouse, and beheld through the aperture of
the door a gleaming eye flaming like the carbuncle of Oriental legend;
for if it were false that she had a double pupil, and that she possessed
the stone which is found in the heads of dragons, it was at least true
that her green glance penetrated darkness like the glaucous eye of the
cat and tiger.

A cry, like that of a fawn who receives an arrow in her flank while
tranquilly dreaming among the leafy shadows, was on the point of
bursting from her lips, yet she found strength to control herself, and
lay down beside Candaules, cold as a serpent, with the violets of death
upon her cheeks and lips. Not a muscle of her limbs quivered, not a
fibre of her body palpitated, and soon her slow, regular breathing
seemed to indicate that Morpheus had distilled his poppy juice upon her
eyelids.

She had divined and comprehended all.

Gyges, trembling and distracted with passion, had retired, following
exactly the instructions of Candaules; and if Nyssia, through some
unfortunate chance, had not turned her head ere taking her place upon
the couch, and perceived him in the act of taking flight, doubtless she
would have remained forever unconscious of the outrage done to her
charms by a husband more passionate than scrupulous.

Accustomed to the winding corridors of the palace, the young warrior had
no difficulty in finding his way out. He passed through the city at a
reckless pace like a madman escaped from Anticyra, and by making himself
known to the sentinels who guarded the ramparts, he had the gates opened
for him and gained the fields beyond. His brain burned, his cheeks
flamed as with the fires of fever; his breath came hotly panting through
his lips; he flung himself down upon the meadow-sod humid with the tears
of the night; and at last hearing in the darkness, through the thick
grass and water-plants, the silvery respiration of a Naiad, he dragged
himself to the spring, plunged his hands and arms into the crystal
flood, bathed his face, and drank several mouthfuls of the water in the
hope to cool the ardor which was devouring him. Any one who could have
seen him thus hopelessly bending over the spring in the feeble
starlight would have taken him for Narcissus pursuing his own shadow;
but it was not of himself assuredly that Gyges was enamoured.

The rapid apparition of Nyssia had dazzled his eyes like the keen zigzag
of a lightning-flash. He beheld her floating before him in a luminous
whirlwind, and felt that never through all his life could he banish that
image from his vision. His love had grown to vastness; its flower had
suddenly burst, like those plants which open their blossoms with a clap
of thunder. To master his passion were henceforth a thing impossible: as
well counsel the empurpled waves which Poseidon lifts with his trident
to lie tranquilly in their bed of sand and cease to foam upon the rocks
of the shore. Gyges was no longer master of himself, and he felt a
miserable despair, as of a man riding in a chariot, who finds his
terrified and uncontrollable horses rushing with all the speed of a
furious gallop toward some rock-bristling precipice. A hundred thousand
projects, each wilder than the last, whirled confusedly through his
brain. He blasphemed Destiny, he cursed his mother for having given him
life, and the gods that they had not caused him to be born to a throne,
for then he might have been able to espouse the daughter of the satrap.

A frightful agony gnawed at his heart; he was jealous of the king. From
the moment of the tunic's fall at the feet of Nyssia, like the flight of
a white dove alighting upon a meadow, it had seemed to him that she
belonged to him; he deemed himself despoiled of his wealth by Candaules.
In all his amorous reveries he had never until then thought of the
husband; he had thought of the queen only as of a pure abstraction,
without representing to himself in fancy all those intimate details of
conjugal familiarity, so poignant, so bitter for those who love a woman
in the power of another. Now he had beheld Nyssia's blonde head bending
like a blossom beside the dark head of Candaules. The very thought of it
had inflamed his anger to the highest degree, although a moment's
reflection should have convinced him that things could not have come to
pass otherwise, and he felt growing within him a most unjust hatred
against his master. The act of having compelled his presence at the
queen's dishabille seemed to him a barbarous irony, an odious refinement
of cruelty, for he did not remember that his love for her could not have
been known by the king, who had sought in him only a confidant of easy
morals and a connoisseur in beauty. That which he ought to have regarded
as a great favor affected him like a mortal injury for which he was
meditating vengeance. While thinking that to-morrow the same scene of
which he had been a mute and invisible witness would infallibly renew
itself, his tongue clove to his palate, his forehead became imbeaded
with drops of cold sweat, and his hand convulsively grasped the hilt of
his great double-edged sword.

Nevertheless, thanks to the freshness of the night, that excellent
counsellor, he became a little calmer, and returned to Sardes before the
morning light had become bright enough to enable a few early rising
citizens and slaves to notice the pallor of his brow and the disorder of
his apparel. He betook himself to his regular post at the palace, well
suspecting that Candaules would shortly send for him; and, however
violent the agitation of his feelings, he felt he was not powerful
enough to brave the anger of the king, and could in no way escape
submitting again to this
rôle
of confidant, which could thenceforth
only inspire him with horror. Having arrived at the palace, he seated
himself upon the steps of the cypress-panelled vestibule, leaned his
back against a column, and, under the pretext of being fatigued by the
long vigil under arms, he covered his head with his mantle and feigned
sleep to avoid answering the questions of the other guards.

If the night had been terrible to Gyges, it had not been less so to
Nyssia, as she never for an instant doubted that he had been purposely
hidden there by Candaules. The king's persistency in begging her not to
veil so austerely a face which the gods had made for the admiration of
men, his evident vexation upon her refusal to appear in Greek costume at
the sacrifices and public solemnities, his unsparing raillery at what he
termed her barbarian shyness, all tended to convince her that the young
Heracleid had sought to admit some one into those mysteries which
should remain secret to all, for without his encouragement no man could
have dared to risk himself in an undertaking the discovery of which
would have resulted in the punishment of a speedy death.

How slowly did the black hours seem to her to pass! How anxiously did
she await the coming of dawn to mingle its bluish tints with the yellow
gleams of the almost exhausted lamp! It seemed to her that Apollo would
never mount his chariot again, and that some invisible hand was
sustaining the sand of the hour-glass in air. Though brief as any other,
that night seemed to her like the Cimmerian nights, six long months of
darkness.

While it lasted she lay motionless and rigid at full length on the very
edge of her couch in dread of being touched by Candaules. If she had not
up to that night felt a very strong love for the son of Myrsus, she had,
at least, ever exhibited toward him that grave and serene tenderness
which every virtuous woman entertains for her husband, although the
altogether Greek freedom of his morals frequently displeased her, and
though he entertained ideas at variance with her own in regard to
modesty; but after such an affront she could only feel the chilliest
hatred and most icy contempt for him; she would have preferred even
death to one of his caresses. Such an outrage it was impossible to
forgive, for among the barbarians, and above all among the Persians and
Bactrians, it was held a great disgrace, not for women only, but even
for men, to be seen without their garments.

At length Candaules arose, and Nyssia, awaking from her simulated sleep,
hurried from that chamber now profaned in her eyes as though it had
served for the nocturnal orgies of Bacchantes and courtesans. It was
agony for her to breathe that impure air any longer, and that she might
freely give herself up to her grief she took refuge in the upper
apartments reserved for the women, summoned her slaves by clapping her
hands, and poured ewers of water over her shoulders, her bosom, and her
whole body, as, though hoping by this species of lustral ablution to
efface the soil imprinted by the eyes of Gyges. She would have
voluntarily torn, as it were, from her body that skin upon which the
rays shot from a burning pupil seemed to have left their traces. Taking
from the hands of her waiting women the thick downy materials which
served to drink up the last pearls of the bath, she wiped herself with
such violence that a slight purple cloud rose to the spots she had
rubbed.